A San Francisco mother chronicles her reluctant obsession with making dinner for her family.
Glue guns and sippy cups required.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Necessity is the Mother of Substitution

"Sawry!!"

Remember the scene in the 'Great Muppet Caper' when Fozzie is going over his checklist as the gang prepares to catch the thieves who were plotting to steal the Baseball Diamond? The conversation went like this:

Fozzie: Frisbee?

Spencer: It's lost

Fozzie: Wax lips?

Floyd: Man I just had 'em

Fozzie: Yo-yo?

Janice: Fer sure

Fozzie: Peanut butter?

Floyd: Animal ate it.

Animal: Saw-ry!

This was the scene in my kitchen this evening as I started to make Soba noodles with Peanut Sauce for dinner. I *thought* we had peanut butter but my husband apparently put the jar back in the fridge with about two tablespoons left inside. I considered throwing a Monster-like tantrum, but necessity is the mother of substitution, so I scanned the fridge and pulled out a long forgotten jar of almond butter. Invoking my best Tim "This Concerns Me" Gunn, I made it work.

I used to be the kind of person where if I didn't have exactly what was called for in the recipe, I would abandon ship immediately. If the recipe called for red peppercorns, I scoured every spice store on the Internet looking for them. If a recipe called for dried porcini mushrooms, I was calling every Consentino's in the tri-state area - it seriously never occurred to me to use fresh porcini mushrooms. I just didn't know how to wing it.

But I've upped my game in the past few years and can say that an empty jar of peanut butter wasn't going to slow me down. I just made do with what I had and it turned out pretty good. The sauce was a little thinner than I wanted, so next time I won't add so much water.